Echo based level gauges are configured to emit a signal and receive a reflection of said signal in a surface in a tank and to determine a filling level based on an echo curve resulting from said reflection. A well known example of such gauges is the radar level gauge (RLG).
Radar level gauges are widely used for measuring the filling level of products contained in tanks, such as oil, gasoline, natural gas. Radar level gauging is generally performed either by means of non-contact measurement, whereby electromagnetic signals are radiated towards the product contained in the tank, or by means of contact measurement, often referred to as guided wave radar (GWR), whereby electromagnetic signals are guided towards and into the product by a probe acting as a waveguide. In some applications, one or several radar level gauges are mounted on tanks, typically very large tanks, and filling level data is communicated to a remote control unit by wire or wireless.
Conventionally, if a failure occurs such that one of the radar level gauges presents an erroneous filling level or is rendered completely inoperable, an operator will connect a mobile data storage (e.g. a laptop) to the failing radar level gauge in order to record data (echo curves etc.) during a period of time. If and when the failure occurs again, the recorded data may be analyzed and the reason for failure identified. Such procedure may also be implemented for analyzing how the gauge interacts with the rest of the process.
The Radar Master system by Rosemount is a software tool for such analysis of stored data. With this software, a user may use a slider to view a series of echo curves recorded over time.
Although the Radar Master software provides considerable advantages over other existing solutions, there is still a need to even further improve and facilitate the process of identifying a reason for failure in a radar level gauge and to better understand the general gauging process and how the gauge interacts with the rest of the process.